The JeskyBera Blog is the writing home of Jessica Ribera.

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Dec 9 Stairs Are Not Your Friend

A little author's note: This little essay is really just one more version of what I seem to write over and over. So, yes, I know I have said these things. I just can't help it that they keep coming up. And, in case you wonder, everyone written about here had the chance to see it all and approve of it being online.

Recently, I got the worst text I have ever received:

I need your prayers right now. Coming home from work because Barbara
had to call 911 because David fell. I have no idea any of the details
but I did hear him screaming in the background.

My dear, dear friend (like, getting-my-children-if-I-die,
basically-named-my-son-after-her “dear”), Brenna, had to write
this. David slipped on the stairs while she was at work, and he was
at home alone with their two girls. A couple of hours later we
learned that he had fractured some ribs and punctured a lung. He
received a chest-tube while awake, and then spent 5 days in the
highest trauma-level hospital in our area feeling constantly
nauseous. Brenna was several weeks pregnant at the time.

From the moment the text dinged, I was sick with worry. Obviously, my
concern for David was great, and I was afraid of what the stress of
it all could mean for Brenna and her fragile baby. Thankfully, it
didn't take too long for the doctors to conclude that the
pneumothorax was David's only big problem, but I was scared I may
receive another text about some complication. The whole first night,
I barely slept, and when I did I had nightmares involving the word
“pneumothorax” and flashes from old memories.

Around 4am, I awoke to feed my baby and realized suddenly why this
all was tormenting me so. Beyond all the obvious concerns for my
friends and their children, this accident struck a deep, tender
nerve. It was the stairs. He fell down the stairs. I
shook my husband awake, “Rib, Rib! He fell down the stairs. It
happened to him too! This is all freaking me out so bad because of
the stair thing.” “Yeah,” he answered. “I know. I figured
that was pretty obvious.” “Thanks for filling me in,” I
thought.

As a child, I was very brave. Very little scared me (except for E.T.,
but...). I could run and leap and try just about anything. Now, as an
adult, I'm afraid of stairs and risk-taking in general. The accident
that ended my ballet life happened on a set of stairs. A mistake was made by someone else, and I fell down scenery stairs. “Off” is more accurate than “down.” My invincible
youth came to a quick close. Vulnerability arrived, or, rather, was
revealed. And then came the pain. Pain that was life-altering,
devastating, and yet uncovered a profound strength that I didn't know
I had.

As soon as I knew David would be ok, that his injuries were not going
to kill him, I kept thinking over and over, “He's going to be a
much more interesting, rich person now. His compassion and empathy
will expand so much!” “Jealous” is definitely the wrong word,
but a certain wistfulness came over me. A kind of deep longing for
him to have great results, the kind of results that I have received
from all the physical pain I have survived. At the same time, I was
thoroughly sad for him and Brenna. Injury had touched them. It got in
to their lives. New vulnerabilities were exposed, and new needs for
protection would take up places in their minds, their preoccupations.
Yes, Pain can be an insightful instructor. In a heart ruled by God's
love, on guard for bitterness, it can teach essential, enlightening
things. But, the lessons aren't cheap.

I hope and pray that David's pains and fall will not cost him too
much (medical bills aside!). I hope his trip down the stairs proves
to have been only a misdemeanor offense. For me, the fall turned out
to be a shocking robbery. Grand Theft Auto. A homicidal home
invasion. There are things I had before that are gone forever, unless
God chooses to restore them to me in Glory. Sometimes, I really
question whether what I have gained for now is worth all the losses.
But, even the deficiencies teach me.

Even before I fell down the stairs, I had formed some positive
associations with physical pain. I know what dancers, athletes, know
about pain: it can have it's rewards. Muscle aches lead to strength
and flexibility. Blisters lead to callouses. Bruised nails get tough.
Stress fractures make thicker bones. Exhaustion develops endurance.
Practice makes perfect. And, oh! It feels so, so good to be perfect,
to do it how you know it can and should be done! My pains as a dancer
had their purpose, and that purpose was beautiful and gave me
pleasure like I have not know since. If the pain had made me give up,
I would never have lived the joy of the results.

My senior year of high school, I was accepted to study for the Summer
at the School of American Ballet in New York City. This was a very
big deal for me and for my small ballet company in the middle of
(ballet-related) nowhere. I could not wait to see myself in the
mirrors that so many of my idols had seen themselves in. I would
squeal with delight at the thought of being in “George's School,”
as my friends and I referred to it. I was obsessed with New York City
Ballet. I saw going there to study as THE best thing that could have
happened to me at age 16. I prepared for it like the rite of passage
that it was. I thought everything through, including the fact that I
would have to wear my pointe shoes for every class, for the whole
class. This was new to me. It should not have been, but then my
training had some gaps. On my own, I decided that I HAD to keep my
pointe shoes on, no matter what. Back then, my options for shoes were
limited to what I could afford to try and get my hands on via the
internet. If I ordered something that didn't really work, I usually
wore them anyway because they were all I had. The shoes I finally
settled on, I knew later, did not fit me properly and weren't doing
me any favors. This is part of why they hurt so badly. But, I kept
those boots strapped to my feet as though my life depended on it, and
my dancer life kind of did. I bled through the outside satin more
than once, and I felt so badass it was ridiculous. I got blisters on
top of blisters and bruises in my bruises. But, I did it. My feet did
toughen up, and I learned that I could make it through more than I
had thought. When I got to New York, one of the first things I did
was figure out how to walk to the Freed store, and I, for the first
time had a professional pointe shoe fitter help me find shoes that
worked better than any I had ever tried, and they didn't hurt like
the ones to which I was accustomed. Amazing. My suffering had been
worth it.

My fall, though, had no apparent purpose. Immediately, there was no
result but disaster, undoing. This pain was the bad kind, not a
measured, wisely monitored means to an end. It was a car wreck. It
scared the daylights out of me and kept me scared for a long, long
time. I still do not like stairs, and I frequently ask Brendan to
please walk in front of me and to not touch me while we are on a big
staircase. I know what it is like to have your life changed by a fall
down the stairs.

So, how did I get to a place where I could have the thought of being
strangely excited for David? Not “happy for him” because that's
just screwed up; however, “eager” applies. Surviving pain,
emotional and physical, showed me so many new things about myself.
They are not all good, by any means, but they definitely aren't all
bad either. As for the bad ones, I'm working on them. “You can't
change what you don't know,” and all that. The knowledge of what I
can take, of what can be survived and endured, does encourage me
daily.

“What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.”

What?! Maybe. Sometimes it leaves you bed-ridden. I did not survive
unscathed, and those wounds, though painful still, turn my attention
outside of myself. They show me the need for others. When I am weak
and bewildered, my family and friends are shown to be strong and
sure. When I am without hope, they hope for me. And when they all
inevitably fail me, God is there. And he is not the failsafe, not the
back-up plan. He is the LORD, and all things are held together in
him. He is the only thing that makes it OK to be in pain and hope for
a lesson. With God, even bed-ridden can be a place of growth and
value.

Whenever I try to sit and write about these things. I inevitably
slant toward these neatly-tied ends. I have a few thoughts about
that; the first, insecure thought being that I am coming off like
some out-of-touch Pollyanna, an idiot in denial. As for how I appear:
I suppose I cannot speak to that. While I don't think I am Pollyanna,
I do acknowledge that I have an aversion to wallowing in bad memories
for too long. I want to get out of the woods, so to speak, so that I
won't be lost. I do not see much use in enduring pain, even the
memory of pain, for the sake of proving I can. No, I've had way too
much evidence in my life as a dancer, former-dancer, mom, and
chronic-illness-sufferer that pain, if it ain't headed somewhere
good, is best avoided! But, if it is thrust upon you, as a believer
in God I can say, better milk it for all it can be worth! I have a
longing to write about my short life as a dancer and what has transpired
since it was taken from me. There are many reasons for this, but I
think these strong beliefs about pain are at the bottom of it all. I
just want it to all be worth as much as possible for anyone who cares
to know!